Introduction

A game of Texas hold 'em in progress. "Hold 'em" is a popular form of poker.

Poker is a family of card games that combines gambling, strategy, and skill. All poker variants involve betting as an intrinsic part of play, and determine the winner of each hand according to the combinations of players' cards, at least some of which remain hidden until the end of the hand. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or "community" cards, the number of cards that remain hidden, and the betting procedures.

In most modern poker games the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some form of a forced bet (the blind or ante). In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in turn must either match (or "call") the maximum previous bet, or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further involvement in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise" (increase) the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the remaining player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed, and the player with the winning hand takes the pot.

Selected general articles

Stud poker is any of a number of pokervariants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round (it is usually the player whose face-up cards make the best hand for the game being played). The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards, which gave rise to the common English expression ace in the hole for any hidden advantage. Read more...

Razz is a form of stud poker that is normally played for ace-to-five low (lowball poker). The object of Razz is to make the lowest possible five-card hand from the seven cards you are dealt. In Razz, straights and flushes do not count against the player for low, and the ace always plays low. Thus, the best possible Razz hand is 5-4-3-2-A, or 5 high, also known as "the wheel" or "the bicycle". Deuce-to-seven Razz is also sometimes played. Razz is featured in the mixed game rotation H.O.R.S.E. as the "R" in the game's name. Read more...

An ace-high straight flush, commonly known as a royal flush, is the best possible hand in many variants of poker.

In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win. In low games, like razz, the lowest-ranking hands win. In high-low split games, both the highest-ranking and lowest-ranking hands win, though different rules are used to rank the high and low hands.

Each hand belongs to a category determined by the patterns formed by its cards. A hand in a higher-ranking category always ranks higher than a hand in a lower-ranking category. A hand is ranked within its category using the ranks of its cards. Individual cards are ranked, from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2. However, aces have the lowest rank under ace-to-five low or ace-to-six low rules, or under high rules as part of a five-high straight or straight flush. Suits are not ranked, so hands that differ by suit alone are of equal rank. Read more...

The most common application of Morton's theorem occurs when one player holds the best hand, but there are two or more opponents on draws. In this case, the player with the best hand might make more money in the long run when an opponent folds to a bet, even if that opponent is folding correctly and would be making a personal mistake to call the bet. This type of situation is sometimes referred to as implicit collusion. Read more...

Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is a variation of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt face up in three stages. The stages consist of a series of three cards ("the flop"), later an additional single card ("the turn" or "fourth street"), and a final card ("the river" or "fifth street"). Each player seeks the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards of the five community cards and their two hole cards. Players have betting options to check, call, raise, or fold. Rounds of betting take place before the flop is dealt and after each subsequent deal. The player who has the best hand and has not folded by the end of all betting rounds wins all of the money bet for the hand, known as the pot.

Protection in poker is a bet made with a strong but vulnerable hand, such as top pair when straight or flush draws are possible. The bet forces opponents with draws to either call with insufficient pot odds, or to fold, both of which are profitable for the betting player. By contrast, if he failed to protect his hand, another player could draw out on him at no cost, meaning he gets no value from his made hand.

A protection play differs from a bluff in that the bluff can win only when the opponent folds, while protection bet is made with a hand that is likely to win a showdown, but isn't strong enough for slow playing. Read more...

Slow playing (also called sandbagging or trapping) is a deceptive play in poker where a player bets weakly or passively with a strong holding. It is the opposite of fast playing. A flat call can be a form of slow playing. The objective of slow playing is to lure opponents into a pot who might fold to a raise, or to cause them to bet more strongly than they would if the player had played aggressively (bet or raised). Slow playing sacrifices protection against hands that may improve and risks losing the pot-building value of a bet if the opponent also checks.

David Sklansky defines the following conditions for profitable slow plays:

A player must have a very strong hand.

The free card or cheap card the player is allowing to his opponents must have good possibilities of making them a second-best hand.

That same free card must have little chance of giving an opponent a better hand or even giving them a draw to a better hand on the next round with sufficient pot odds to justify a call.

The player must believe that he will drive out opponents by showing aggression, but can win a big pot if the opponents stay in the pot.

Casino tokens (also known as casino or gaming chips, checks, or cheques) are small discs used in lieu of currency in casinos. Colored metal, injection-molded plastic or compression molded clay tokens of various denominations are used primarily in table games, as opposed to metal token coins, used primarily in slot machines. Casino tokens are also widely used as play money in casual or tournament games.

Some casinos also use rectangular gaming plaques for high-stakes table games ($25,000 and above). Plaques differ from chips in that they are larger, usually rectangular in shape and contain serial numbers. Read more...

Position in poker refers to the order in which players are seated around the table and the related poker strategy implications. Players who act first are in "early position"; players who act later are in "late position"; players who act in between are in "middle position". A player "has position" on opponents acting before him and is "out of position" to opponents acting after him. Because players act in clockwise order, a player "has position" on opponents seated to his right, except when the opponent has the button and certain cases in the first betting round of games with blinds. Read more...

Omaha hold 'em (also known as Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his or her best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd, who offered it as a game at the Las VegasGolden Nugget Casino (calling it "Nugget Hold'em"). Omaha uses a 52-card French deck. Limit Omaha hold 'em 8-or-better is the "O" game featured in H.O.R.S.E. Both limit Omaha/8 and pot limit Omaha high are featured in the 8-Game. Read more...

The poker boom was a period between 2003 and 2006, during which poker, primarily no limit Texas hold 'em, but also other variations, became considerably more popular around the world. During the boom years the online poker player pool at least doubled in size every year. Read more...

Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Until the recent increase in popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States, and in casinos in the eastern part of the country. Two to eight players is common, though eight may require special rules for the last cards dealt if no players fold. With experienced players who fold often, even playing with nine players is possible.

In casino play, it is common to use a small ante and bring-in. In home games, it is typical to use an ante only. Read more...

A tell in poker is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that is claimed by some to give clues to that player's assessment of their hand. A player gains an advantage if they observe and understand the meaning of another player's tell, particularly if the tell is unconscious and reliable. Sometimes a player may fake a tell, hoping to induce their opponents to make poor judgments in response to the false tell. More often, people try to avoid giving out a tell, by maintaining a poker face regardless of how strong or weak their hand is. Read more...

The following is a glossary of poker terms used in the card game of poker. It supplements the glossary of card game terms. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon poker slang terms. This is not intended to be a formal dictionary; precise usage details and multiple closely related senses are omitted here in favor of concise treatment of the basics. Read more...

The fundamental theorem is stated in common language, but its formulation is based on mathematical reasoning. Each decision that is made in poker can be analyzed in terms of the expected value of the payoff of a decision. The correct decision to make in a given situation is the decision that has the largest expected value. If a player could see all of their opponents' cards, they would always be able to calculate the correct decision with mathematical certainty, and the less they deviate from these correct decisions, the better their expected long-term results. This is certainly true heads-up, but Morton's theorem, in which an opponent's correct decision can benefit a player, may apply in multi-way pots. Read more...

Non-standard poker hands are hands which are not recognized by official poker rules but are made by house rules. Non-standard hands usually appear in games using wild cards or bugs. Other terms for nonstandard hands are special hands or freak hands. Because the hands are defined by house rules, the composition and ranking of these hands is subject to variation. Any player participating in a game with non-standard hands should be sure to determine the exact rules of the game before play begins. Read more...

Cheating in poker

Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules that is intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players. Read more...

A poker player is drawing if they have a hand that is incomplete and needs further cards to become valuable. The hand itself is called a draw or drawing hand. For example, in seven-card stud, if four of a player's first five cards are all spades, but the hand is otherwise weak, they are drawing to a flush. In contrast, a made hand already has value and does not necessarily need to draw to win. A made starting hand with no help can lose to an inferior starting hand with a favorable draw. If an opponent has a made hand that will beat the player's draw, then the player is drawing dead; even if they make their desired hand, they will lose. Not only draws benefit from additional cards; many made hands can be improved by catching an out — and may have to in order to win. Read more...

A game of Texas hold 'em in progress. "Hold 'em" is a popular form of poker.

In the card game of poker, a bluff is a bet or raise made with a hand which is not thought to be the best hand. To bluff is to make such a bet. The objective of a bluff is to induce a fold by at least one opponent who holds a better hand. The size and frequency of a bluff determines its profitability to the bluffer. By extension, the phrase "calling somebody's bluff" is often used outside the context of poker to describe cases where one person "demand[s] that someone prove a claim" or prove that he or she "is not being deceptive." Read more...

A computer poker player is a computer program designed to play the game of poker against human opponents or other computer opponents. It is commonly referred to as pokerbot or just simply bot. Read more...

In the game of poker, opens and raises are considered aggressive plays, while calls and checks are considered passive (though a check-raise would be considered a very aggressive play). It is said[by whom?] that "aggression has its own value", meaning that often aggressive plays can make money with weak hands because of bluff value. In general, opponents must respond to aggressive play by playing more loosely, which offers more opportunities to make mistakes.

While it is true that aggressive play is generally superior to passive play, using any play exclusively can lead to predictability. A player who is constantly aggressive and plays many inferior hands is called a "maniac", and skilled players will take advantage of him by calling him more often, using isolation plays, and by other means. Read more...

In poker, a steal is a type of a bluff, a raise during the first betting round made with an inferior hand and meant to make other players fold superior hands because of shown strength. A steal is normally either an "ante steal" or "blind steal" (depending on whether the game being played uses antes or blinds).

Steals are done with hands less valuable than what might normally be considered a raising hand, normally a below average one, with the hope that the few players remaining will not have a hand worth calling the raise, thereby winning the antes or blinds without further action. This play is used either in late position after several people have folded, or when the game is short-handed. Steals happen more often in tournament situations due to the escalating ante/blind structure making the starting pot quite valuable. Read more...

Chinese poker is a card game based on poker hand rankings. It is intended a beginner-friendly game, as only a basic knowledge of poker hand rankings is needed to get started. Additionally, the format allows for frequent unexpected outcomes, so there is a large element of luck involved, therefore a beginner has a good chance of winning in the short term, even against experienced opponents. Read more...

The game of poker was developed some time during the early 19th century in the United States. Since those early beginnings, poker has grown to become an extremely popular pastime throughout the world. Read more...

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to poker:

Poker – family of card games that share betting rules and usually (but not always) hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown (in some games, the pot is split between the high and low hands), limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed. Read more...

In poker, pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the cost of a contemplated call. Pot odds are often compared to the probability of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value. Read more...

Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a huge increase in the number of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker revenues grew from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion in 2005, while a survey carried out by DrKW and Global Betting and Gaming Consultants asserted online poker revenues in 2004 were at $1.4 billion. In a testimony before the United States Senate regarding Internet Gaming, Grant Eve, a Certified Public Accountant representing the US Accounting Firm Joseph Eve, Certified Public Accountants, estimated that one in every four dollars gambled is gambled online. Read more...

Draw poker is any poker variant in which each player is dealt a complete hand before the first betting round, and then develops the hand for later rounds by replacing, or "drawing", cards.

The descriptions below assume the reader is familiar with the general game play of poker, and with hand values (both high and low variations). They also make no assumptions about what betting structure is used. In home games, it is typical to use an ante, and betting always begins with the player to the dealer's left. In casino play, it is more common to use blinds; the first betting round thus begins with the player to the left of the big blind, and subsequent rounds begin with the player to the dealer's left, thus draw games are very positional. Read more...

Five-card stud is the earliest form of the card game stud poker, originating during the American Civil War, but is less commonly played today than many other more popular poker games. It is still a popular game in parts of the world, especially in Finland where a specific variant of five-card stud called Sökö (also known as Canadian stud or Scandinavian stud) is played. The word sökö is also used for checking in Finland ("I check" = "minä sökötän").

A check-raise in poker is a common deceptive play in which a player checks early in a betting round, hoping someone else will open. The player who checked then raises in the same round.

This might be done, for example, when the first player believes that an opponent has an inferior hand and will not call a direct bet, but that they may attempt to bluff, allowing the first player to win more money than they would by betting straightforwardly. The key point is that if no one else is keen to bet, then the most a player can raise by (in a limit game) is one single bet. If someone else bets first, they can raise, thus increasing the value of the pot by two bets. In a no-limit game, there is no restriction on the size of one's bet, and a raise is likely to be much larger than the second player's bet. Of course, if no other player chooses to open, the betting will be checked around and the play will have failed to elicit additional money for the pot. Like a simple check, a failed check-raise provides other players an opportunity to view the next card or cards dealt without requiring the other players to commit more money to the pot. A check-raise thus contains an element of risk because the check-raising player's advantage may deteriorate when new cards are revealed. Read more...

Open-face Chinese poker, OFCP, commonly known as Open Face Chinese or OFC, is a variant of Chinese poker where players receive five cards to start and then one card at a time until each player has a 13 card hand legal or not. The game originated in Finland during the mid-2000s and spread to Russia a few years later. Professional poker player Alex Kravchenko, who is credited with introducing the game to the Russian high-stakes community, describes the game as "spreading like a virus". The game was introduced to the United States in 2012.

In the game of poker, the play largely centers on the act of betting, and as such, a protocol has been developed to speed up play, lessen confusion, and increase security while playing. Different games are played using different types of bets, and small variations in etiquette exist between cardrooms, but for the most part the following rules and protocol are observed by the majority of poker players. Read more...

Three-card brag is a 16th-century Britishcard game, and the British national representative of the vying or "bluffing" family of gambling games. Brag is a direct descendant of the Elizabethan game of Primero and one of the several ancestors to poker, just varying in betting style and hand rankings.

A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table (called a "heads-up" tournament), and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables. The winner of the tournament is usually the person who wins every poker chip in the game and the others are awarded places based on the time of their elimination. To facilitate this, in most tournaments, blinds rise over the duration of the tournament. Unlike in a ring game (or cash game), a player's chips in a tournament cannot be cashed out for money and serve only to determine the player's placing. Read more...

The pot in poker refers to the sum of money that players wager during a single hand or game, according to the betting rules of the variant being played. It is likely that the word pot is related to or derived from the word jackpot.

At the conclusion of a hand, either by all but one player folding, or by showdown, the pot is won or shared by the player or players holding the winning cards. Sometimes a pot can be split between many players. This is particularly true in high-low games where not only the highest hand can win, but under appropriate conditions, the lowest hand will win a share of the pot. Read more...

Community card poker refers to any game of poker that uses community cards (also called "shared cards" or "window cards"), which are cards dealt face up in the center of the table and shared by all players. In these games, each player is dealt privately an incomplete hand ("hole cards"), which are then combined with the community cards to make a complete hand. The set of community cards is called the "board", and may be dealt in a simple line or arranged in a special pattern. Rules of each game determine how they may be combined with each player's private hand. The most popular community card game today is Texas hold 'em, originating sometime in the 1920s.

In home games, it is typical to use antes, while casinos typically use only blinds for these games. No limit and Fixed limit games are most common, while spread limit and pot limit games are less common. The betting format and stakes can vary by region as well as time of year and volume (casinos often change games on weekends to accommodate increased customer demand). Later betting rounds often have a higher limit than earlier betting rounds. Each betting round begins with the player to the dealer's left (when blinds are used, the first round begins with the player after the big blind), so community card games are generally positional games. Read more...

Did you know...

... that Palazzo Corpi, the longtime United States consulate in Istanbul, was acquired by the American government in a poker game?